Spain-headquartered Banco Santander SA, a global financial banking institution and an early-adopter of distributed-ledger technologies, has named Digital Asset CEO Blythe Masters as its Senior Blockchain Adviser, according to reports by Reuters.
The new position will complement her existing role as non-executive chair for Santander USA Inc, the brand’s US entity, as Banco Santander further explores the use of blockchain across financial services under her guidance, and as it already has used blockchain for certain of its internal operations.
Funding distributed ledger technology
Blythe Masters
Source: LinkedIn
Mrs. Masters was previously the chair for both the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) and the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA), helping to drive change for industry associations from the top.
After nearly several decades with JP Morgan where she held a number of prominent roles for the bank, Mrs. Masters left the firm in 2014, before becoming CEO of Digital Asset.
Earlier this year Digital Asset raised a $50 million funding round from ICAP's fintech arm Euclid Opportunities, and also had funding from Goldman Sachs, IBM and other investors, and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) had also pumped more money into the firm to raise its stake from 5% to 8.5% last month.
Finance Magnates wrote about Digital Asset Holdings earlier this year after the firm made a number of deals for distributed ledger solutions, as Blockchain technologies - that propelled Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin - are being applied across other spectrums of financial products for both consumers and enterprises.
Blockchain focus
One of the attractive features of blockchain technology - aside from the rapid use of a digital solution for faster settlement or trade processing - is that a ledger’s history is immutable, making it harder for fraud to take place and a lot easier for it to be detected in hindsight, among other attributes.
While cyber security concerns are still high on the list of priorities for regulators and market participants, and since networks including distributed ledgers can control or affect financial transactions, the interest continues to pour into these new technologies with more and more blockchain consortiums being unveiled recently.
With so much focus going into blockchain research currently, the landscape for related products will likely see drastic changes over the next few years as new innovations are applied to disrupt traditional approaches to financial technology and services.
